Goddamned [Import]

Jay Brannan | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 26, 2008)
• Original Release Date: 2008
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Phantom Sound & Vision
• ASIN: B001CF69AC
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #460,749 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Can't Have It All

2. Half-Boyfriend

3. American Idol

4. A Death Waltz

5. At First Sight

6. Housewife

7. Goddamned

8. Home

9. Bowlegged & Starving

10. On All Fours

11. String-A-Long Song

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent work from an iconoclastic genius., August 2, 2008

By 

J. Martin (Upstate New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: goddamned [Explicit] (MP3 Download)

Dictionary.com defines a genius as a person having "an exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work in science, art, music, etc.: the genius of Mozart." By that definition Jay Brannan is a genius.

He seems to have come out of nowhere, with little formal training or experience, but with an irrepressible drive to express himself in his songs, with his voice, and just by being himself. His songs almost without exception are extraordinarily intelligent and beautifully crafted works of art, his voice is clear, fine, and subtle, and his persona is self-effacing but insistent and very engaging. Even his self-taught guitar and piano work are simply lovely and seem to flow naturally out of an inexhaustible internal fountain of creativity.

I discovered Jay Brannan a few months ago on a video sharing site, where he has posted dozens of videos of himself singing his songs at home alone with his guitar. There are also many videos of him in public performances recorded and posted by people in the audience. So I had seen and heard several performances of all the songs on this album before it was released. One remarkable fact is that adding sophisticated recording technology and professional accompaniment adds very little to the quality of the performances. His home-made versions are already better than much other music available today.

Brannan's music is just slightly better than his lyrics. The music is consistently fresh and inventive, often playful, and almost always beautiful. It is never either tedious or predictable, but very occasionally the lyrics are. The more personal his songs are the better they are, and the vast majority of them are flawless. By far the weakest song on this album, in my opinion, is the title song, "goddamned." It's a religio-political protest against Christianity and against the nation of Israel's occupation of Palestine, and it invokes "Mary and Mohammed" to witness the injustices being perpetrated. I find it strident, pretentious, ineffective, and naive. But it is a protest song, it's supposed to be disturbing, and my parents might have said the same things about "Blowin' in the Wind." Different generations have different values.

The Brannan songs I like best seem to have grown out of his own experiences, most of which evidently have been frustrating and painful. But even the darkest and most despairing of those songs has an undercurrent of life that's not going to give up easily. Listening to them is like sharing in the process by which he transforms his hardships into something he can live with.

My favorite songs on this album are "Housewife" and "Bowlegged and Starving." "Housewife" was the first song of his I ever heard. It's a lyrical but unpretentious fantasy of settling down and making a life with another man. Brannan's ease in singing "I want to be a housewife" and "I want to have his baby"--as if those are perfectly normal desires in a man--blew me away. I've been out for a very long time, but rarely has anything outside myself made me feel so good about being gay. I'm grateful to him for continuing to perform this song even though he says it's not how he feels any more. It's not how I ever felt, but it's a joy to hear.

"Bowlegged and Starving" is a very clever, very funny play on the undependability of relationships and the satisfaction in learning just to live your own life. It's unusually upbeat for him, and unusual also in that he wrote it for piano instead of guitar. It's interesting to hear how well the song naturally fits with the new instrument.

As good a songwriter as he is--and he is one of the best around today--I think Brannan's greatest gifts are for performing. In the movie "Shortbus," Brannan's character Ceth says about modeling, "a lot of it's instincts." That's how all his work seems to me. Watching him is like watching instincts in action.

It's as if everything he does is both spontaneous and inevitable. It may all be very thoroughly developed and rehearsed, but that's never how it seems. It seems that each word, and each note, is exactly the right word and exactly the right note, sung and played in exactly the right way for that instant, and that each one has just that moment come bubbling up magically from a well deep inside him, whole and perfect. Even when he's singing a song he's sung (and I've listened to) dozens of times before, and even when he's singing a song somebody else wrote, there's a freshness and immediacy to everything he does that I've never seen anywhere before.

I'd love for him to do an album of other people's songs some day. His versions of songs by Ani DiFranco, Jann Arden, and Joni Mitchell (among many others) are moving and fascinating, not least for the amazing way he makes each one seem as if it's being born right before your eyes.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heaven on earth listening to Jay, September 20, 2008

By 

Michael Wagner (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Goddamned (Audio CD)

This man has the voice, the lyrics and the emotions. I haven't been able to stop listening to this incredible cd. He is a man and a boy all wrapped up in one fatanstic package. Thank you Jay. Has ABBA would say, "Thank you for the music".

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jay is a genius, July 31, 2008

By 

patroklos (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: goddamned [Explicit] (MP3 Download)

This is a brilliant album. He's smart, funny, clever, yes. But, wow, is he TALENTED. The writing is phenomenal for a freshman effort. His voice is gorgeous. With good production on this acoustic album, mostly guitar and strings, it's almost Nick Drake-like in places. I cannot stop listening to this album!